we're going to be friends — lovesick
by allatraka
Summary: Ok. Friends, then.
1. Chapter 1

i.

It was difficult for Nadia to learn at which hospital Marina was being treated in the immediate aftermath of the assault. It took Nadia a whole month afterwards to track her down, and even Samuel and Nano hadn't known where her family had been keeping her. She hadn't been at the general teaching hospital downtown, but at a private Catholic hospital, one with guards that followed Nadia as she walked through the doors and staff that stared at her hijab for a long while before answering her questions with ones of their own.

She would have simply asked Guzmán where Marina was, would have asked him to take her to see her, but he'd been avoiding her calls and texts. Her father had said, "If you want to go back next year, you can. But I don't want to hear about that boy again. I don't want you to go near him." It hadn't taken much imagination on Nadia's part to figure out that Guzmán had made some kind of deal with him to stay clear of her, in exchange for his allowing her to return to Las Encinas. Always a deal with Guzmán, always a bet. Always so focused on getting what he wanted that he let go of what he had, like the dog in the fable.

Marina was alone in her private room. It was pristine and bright with fluorescent light. Her face was scrubbed clean of makeup, her nails of polish, and it made her look younger than Nadia had ever seen her. Unanimated, without the bravado she carried with her, without the rich-girl rebelliousness and petulance, what Nadia noticed most about her was how soft her features were. It was another thing about Marina that reminded Nadia of her sister. She didn't like to imagine where her sister was then or what kind of life she was leading, but Nadia hoped that she'd been able to find what she hadn't at home. If she needed kindness, Nadia hoped she would find it freely and without reservation, the way she was offering it to Marina; if she needed friendship, that she'd find it in someone who gave it more easily than Nadia did herself.

That was how Guzmán found her, holding one of Marina's hands between her own and thinking again of how well she'd treat her sister if she ever came back to their family.

"What are you doing here?"

The first words he'd spoken to her in over a month. He sounded almost hostile.

Nadia took him in, his hair in its customary neat part even though there were dark circles under his eyes. They looked like bruises. "I thought you weren't speaking to me," she said.

If Marina looked vulnerable, Guzmán looked wrecked. Nadia guessed that what she'd heard about him was true, that he'd taken up drinking and cut ties with his oldest friends. It was probably true that he was back with Lu again, too. They are a habit, Nadia thought, the way wishing I'd been better to May is a habit. But right then he was in the hospital room with her, visiting his sister.

Instead of answering her, Guzmán made his way to Marina's side, opposite Nadia. He didn't tell her to leave. He brushed Marina's hair from her face and lay his hand against her forehead. He rubbed his thumb across the space between her brows. It was such an intimate gesture, but Nadia didn't look away. Watching him, she realized that she'd missed him in the few weeks they hadn't seen each other—his kinetic energy, and the way he felt each emotion so intensely even as he flit from one to the other, and the pleasure he took in saying something just to watch for her reaction. She'd been so scared for Marina, so busy helping Omar hide himself from their parents, and so worried about where she would go come the new school term, that she hadn't realized she'd grown used to Guzmán, looked forward to seeing him, even. Another habit for her.

Minutes passed before Guzmán spoke, so long that Nadia thought he really wouldn't say another word to her. But then, without looking away from his sister, he said, "I didn't know you two were such good friends."

"We were," Nadia said. "We are."

His face had grown splotchy in the time since he'd entered the room, and Nadia wondered if he was going to cry. Abruptly, he turned and flung himself into a chair by the door. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and scrubbed his hands over his face, then stayed very still.

The polite thing to do would be to leave him to grieve alone, so he could display whatever his pride kept him from showing her right then, but she and Guzmán had never pretended at politesse. And she wasn't the one who'd made a promise of silence. That was the flaw in his and her father's little arrangement—they'd left her completely out of it, as though she was just some piece of furniture they could move around as they pleased and she couldn't simply open her mouth and ruin their plan in an instant.

"Do you think she really would have left?" she asked.

Guzmán shrugged. "I don't know," he said. He kept his face buried in his hands and his voice came out muffled. "I have no fucking idea what she would have done, to be honest."

"What do you think makes a person leave their family?"

Guzmán's voice sounded raw when he spoke. "She hated us. For a long time, I think. I think we just…weren't the people she wanted to come from."

Nadia dropped Marina's hand. The thought that May had left not just because she wanted to be something other than what was expected of her, but because of disgust, made Nadia angry. She'd felt frustrated with her family before, had felt sheltered and unheard, but she'd never hated her family. She'd always wanted to belong to them. She didn't like to think that May was somewhere in the world acting out the life of someone who didn't have a younger sister, that she never thought about her because she didn't want to remember her. But then Nadia remembered her first day at Las Encinas, and how begrudgingly playful she'd seen Marina be with Guzmán. She remembered how angry he'd been when her HIV status had been revealed.

"I don't know about your parents," Nadia said slowly. She was trying to figure out what she was thinking as she spoke. "But I don't think Marina hated you. Maybe…maybe she wanted to be different from you. But different doesn't mean hatred."

Guzmán didn't answer, didn't give any indication that he'd heard her. Nadia straightened Marina's fingers on the bedsheet where her hand had fallen when she'd dropped it, then made her way to the door. She stopped by Guzmán's side, placed a hand on his shoulder. She felt a tremor run through him. She said nothing. Nadia turned to leave, but in one swift motion Guzmán grabbed her hand and held on to her. "Wait," he said, "Can't you stay? Please?"

He gazed up at her with an open expression, eyes wide and lashes clumped together, but as Nadia looked into his face she couldn't make sense of it. There was despair and there was anger, but there was yearning, too.

Growing up with someone, being raised with them, was a special kind of relationship, unique in a way Nadia felt no one ever managed to articulate well. It was an intimacy you didn't have with anyone else, because it's only a sibling who can know exactly where you come from—the secrets and idiosyncrasies of your family, the inheritances both good and bad, all the unspoken things that separate you from a neighbor just a door away. Nadia knew that to lose a person like that, a person who could share your eyes, there was no comparison.

She pressed her lips together and gave Guzmán a small nod. He didn't let go of her hand until she settled in the seat next to him, and then he hunched over and hid his face again. Cautiously, Nadia laid a hand against his back. She rubbed him there in slow, small circles. She looked at Marina lying still in her bed and promised her silently that she'd visit until she woke.

ii.

Nadia kept her promise. When she wasn't tending the store, when she wasn't helping her parents with housework or checking the bookkeeping, when she wasn't prodding Omar late into the night about what he liked so much about Ander, she was with Marina. After that first evening together with Guzmán her visits became remarkably free of obstacles. She didn't even have to ask to be let in to see Marina. A nurse glided up to her the minute she stepped off the elevator onto the floor and guided her to Marina's room, even asked her to call if there was anything she needed. Nadia figured Guzmán had probably spoken to the staff there.

Some visits she spent with Marina by herself, and others she spent with Guzmán. They were oftentimes quiet, and it seemed to Nadia that all the sleep he wasn't getting in his bed at home he tried to make up for on the couch in Marina's room. As he slept, she read, getting a head start on the literature she'd have to read for the new term, and for herself, an English translation of her father's favorite collection of poetry by Mahmoud Darwish. Guzmán liked to sleep on his side, and she only sometimes closed her book to stare at his back. Sometimes, when he couldn't sleep and she didn't want to read, Guzmán would take out his phone and hand her an earbud, and together they'd listen to music. He liked moody British singers. She wasn't surprised anymore by how comfortable she felt with him.

When the new term started, Nadia returned to Las Encinas. She noticed all the changes that were made in the wake of Marina's assault. She noticed the silence. She noticed the disappearance of the miniature Nike of Samothrace statue. Polo, who Nadia thought should have been put in prison but wasn't surprised only had to do attend anger management sessions, was not placed in any classes with Guzmán. Neither was Carla. Their clique broke apart. Lu and Ander still ate lunch off-campus with Guzmán, but with all of them, the confidence, the air of ownership that had used to surround them as they walked down the halls and expected the world to part before them was gone. All it had taken was almost murderous violence. Nadia couldn't understand it, why Christian still wanted so badly to be with them, and why she herself didn't turn Guzmán away every time he broke away from Lu and headed over to her locker.

After classes Nadia often took her homework over to Marina's hospital room. She and Guzmán would walk over together, and sometimes Ander came with them. One evening when she and Guzmán were alone with Marina he asked her, "Why don't you wear that at school?" He nodded at her head.

Nadia rolled her eyes. "Why do you think?"

Though her parents knew she wasn't allowed to wear her hijab at Las Encinas, Nadia still wore it on her way out of the house. She took it off in the girls' bathroom before first period, and once her last class was over she put it back on. She didn't like that she had to take it off, and she didn't want to go into it with Guzmán. She placed an elbow on the textbook open on her lap, leaned her chin on her fist, and asked him, "What do the doctors say about Marina? She's improving, isn't she? She'll wake soon?"

Guzmán's gaze remained steady on her. He smiled, blinked slowly like she'd just insulted him, and shook his head. "Don't try to change the subject."

"There is no subject."

"So what? You wear your hijab everywhere except at school just because?"

Nadia shrugged and turned her attention back to her homework.

"You know what I think, Nadia?"

"Mmm?"

"I think I told you about my father, I think I told you about Polo, I think I told you about Omar and Ander, and I think you won't tell me anything."

Nadia stiffened beside him. She'd heard words like this before, from Omar and from May. What had Omar said? I'm not an ice cube like you. She knew what was coming next. Still, she said, "And?"

Guzmán shifted beside her, pulled one leg up on the couch and placed an arm along the back. "And I want to know why. Do you not trust me?"

"You and your friends made a bet that you could take my virginity and I'm supposed to trust you?"

Guzmán's face hardened. He never liked it when she pointed out his mistakes. He liked even less when she reminded him the kind of friendships he'd kept before Marina's assault. "That was a year ago."

"And time heals all wounds?"

"No. But I've apologized. I thought you'd forgiven me. I thought we were friends."

Nadia took a deep breath. "I think I'll finish this at home." She closed her book and reached for her backpack.

"If you want to leave, fine." Guzmán said. "But I wasn't accusing you of anything. We've been coming here together for months, and you listened to me when I needed it. I just want to do the same."

"I'm not coming here so you'll be indebted to me, Guzmán," Nadia said. "I'm coming here because I care about Marina." She didn't say she cared about him.

"You shouldn't feel like you owe me just because—" Nadia stopped herself.

"Just because you're kind to me?" Guzmán offered. Nadia said nothing. Guzmán held up both his hands. "Nevermind then, forget it."

88

Some days later, Nadia was called into the principal's office. "You can wear it."

"Excuse me?" Nadia said, uncomprehending.

"Your scarf—excuse me—your headwear, you can wear it."

"My hijab?"

"Yes," Principal Muñoz said impatiently. Nadia couldn't really believe she was Ander's mother.

"May I ask," Nadia said cautiously, "if there has been a change in school policy, and if there has, why?"

Principal Muñoz looked surprised. "Are you unhappy with this development?"

"No," Nadia said.

"Then no, you may not ask. Please return to your class."

Nadia nodded and gave a soft "Thank you," but before she returned to class, she stopped by the girls' bathroom and put on the hijab she'd folded into her backpack earlier that morning.

Guzmán was already looking at the door when she walked back into class. He gave her a huge grin and mouthed "Nice hijab." Of course. It was just like him, wasn't it? A wave of his hand and the problem is gone. A policy that had targeted her specifically each and every day she had attended Las Encinas, that had regulated and punished who she was, how she presented herself to the world and practiced her faith, and with just a few words from Guzmán it was gone. Nadia did not return his smile.

That afternoon she headed to her family's grocery store. "Hey!" she heard behind her.

"Hey, wait up!" Nadia didn't change her pace, and Guzmán ran up next to her. "Aren't you going to see Marina?"

"No."

"Oh," he sounded disappointed. "Ok, then."

They continued walking in silence, and when they got to the part in the road where she had to turn left and he had to turn right, Guzmán asked her, "Will you come tomorrow?"

Nadia took a moment before she turned to face him. "You know, I don't think I can."

Guzmán frowned. "Nadia…are you mad at me?"

"No," Nadia said, "I'm _furious_."

Guzmán nodded slowly. "You're furious."

"Yes."

"With me."

"Yes."

"Because of this." He motioned towards her hijab.

Nadia slapped his hand and shouted, "Yes!"

"Why? I helped you!"

"Oh, please, you helped yourself." Nadia turned on her heel to leave.

"Hey," Guzmán took a hold of her arm and Nadia rounded on him. He held up both of his hands. "Tell me so that I understand. Why are you angry?"

But how could she explain it? She could barely think it clearly to herself.

"You wanted me to be able to wear my hijab, right?" she asked.

"Yes, of course," Guzmán said. He sounded like he was pleading.

"But what if you didn't?"

"What?"

"What if you didn't want me to wear it? Or what if you didn't care if I wore it or not?"

"But I do care. That's why I went to Muñoz."

"But Guzmán," and here Nadia took a step towards him. It was closer than she'd intended and she startled them both. She had to look up at him. "Guzmán," she said, her voice softer. She knew he could hear her, but she didn't move away when he leaned in closer to her. "Your caring or not is not the point. The point is you shouldn't get to decide whether or not I'm allowed to wear what I want and practice my faith as I see fit. And Muñoz or whomever else shouldn't get to, either. No one should."

"So what?" Guzmán said. His words were challenging her but his tone didn't match them. His voice was gentle. He didn't sound upset at all. His lids were low and his eyes kept flicking back and forth like he was trying to take in her whole face at once. "I shouldn't have gone? It would have been better if you still couldn't wear it?"

Nadia shook her head and took a step back. "You want me to be grateful for the power you have. You want me to be grateful that you felt like helping me. But what if you hadn't felt like it, Guzmán? It isn't fair."

Guzmán shoved his hands in his pockets and gave her a sullen look, one Nadia had seen before. It was almost a pout. She recognized it as one that came over him when he was hurt and frustrated but couldn't argue because he saw the truth in her words. She wondered if he understood everything she'd said, if he saw that when she told him they were different, this was part of it. He swallowed, stood still where he was, didn't move to close the distance she'd put between them. "I know you think I'm a bad person, Nadia, but I didn't do it to show off. I just wanted you to be comfortable. If I can do something for you, then I will."

Nadia took him in—his stubbornness equal to his loyalty, his vengefulness equal to his love. He always made such clear distinctions about who was his and who wasn't. And he looked after who he thought of as his. His sister. His father. His longtime friends. And what was she to him? His—what? But Nadia knew there was a fine line between belonging and control. She wouldn't accept the latter, just to have the former.

"Is that what you thought you were doing with my father? Something for me?" she asked him.

He didn't answer her.

"Would you really not have spoken to me? For how long? The whole term? Until we graduated?"

Guzmán didn't even look shamefaced. "I'd do it again if that's what I had to so you could stay at Las Encinas."

Nadia shook her head. Did he really not know? That part of the joy of Las Encinas for her was him? "Without even asking me?" she said.

At that Guzmán looked away. "Do you know?" he said quietly, "When I saw you at the hospital that first day I was actually happy. I felt so guilty but all I could think was how glad I was to be wrong. I wanted to thank your father for letting you see me."

"What does he have to do with it? You should thank me."

"Thank you." He said it easily, sincerely. He said it as though he were saying something else.

Nadia ducked her head. She held her books closer to her chest. She started walking again, this time in the direction of Marina's hospital. Guzmán fell in step with her. "Do you feel more comfortable now? At school?"

"I do," Nadia said. She didn't thank him, and Guzmán didn't ask her to.


	2. Chapter 2

i.

Marina woke on a crisp day half-way through Nadia's second term at Las Encinas. She and Guzmán and Ander were in her room when it happened. Ander was showing Guzmán something on his phone while Nadia was translating an article for her international policy class when she thought she heard a sound coming from Marina's direction. She snapped her head up to stare at her and after a moment she saw it—Marina moved her lips and let out a low moan.

"Guzmán!" Nadia cried, "Guzmán! Marina! Look!"

Their parents were there in a half hour, and they and Guzmán and Ander all crowded around Marina's bed, crying and hugging her and calling her name over and over. Nadia was overjoyed. She wanted to hold Marina's hand, at least, but she'd never met Marina and Guzmán's parents before, hadn't known either of them for anywhere near as long as Ander, and she felt like an intruder. She stood by the door and wondered if she could slip out without being noticed. That was when Mrs. Osuna saw her. "You," she said, "Who are you? You're not a nurse, what are you doing here?"

Mr. Osuna peered at her for a moment, and he said "Aren't you one of those—"

"Father, she's my guest," Guzmán said, and then Nadia heard Marina's voice. It was tiny and weak, and everyone else had to fall quiet in order for them all to hear her. "Nadia?" she said tentatively. She looked uncertain at first, but then a smile bloomed on her face and she said Nadia's name with confidence. She held out a hand, and Nadia rushed over to take it.

88

Marina's happiness only lasted a few days after she woke. She'd had a miscarriage, and she started to get migraines that she had to take medication for, which left her feeling groggy and disoriented. Her muscles were weak and she needed help walking. All this Nadia learned from Guzmán. She had to hear it from him because Marina stopped accepting visitors, even her parents, and only allowed her brother to see her. She was querulous and given to throwing things across the room when she didn't get her way, and Guzmán was the only one of the Osunas who didn't start crying, or yell at her to stop. Samuel was desperate to see her, Nadia knew, but he was also angry and ashamed; and Nano had been gone for four months now, no one knew where he was. When Marina was released from the hospital, Nadia got a text from Guzmán that read: **I won't be in school for a few weeks. We're going to stay home with Marina so we can help her settle in.**

Nadia quickly texted him back: **You don't need to keep me updated on your life.** Then she bit her lip and typed furiously: **Thank you for letting me know. Send Marina my love. Tell her I'm here if she needs a friend. That goes for you, too.** She had to keep herself from texting again with: **The friend part, not the other part.** She sincerely hoped this wasn't what she sounded like when she spoke to him, but it was hard not to think so when she had the physical evidence in front of her.

With Marina awake and not seeing her, Nadia spent her free time with Omar and Ander. To her, her brother had always been a bit stoic. She'd never seen him have many friends, and certainly not any close ones. They'd never spoken much, and when they had it had usually been to exchange the simplest information—when their parents would be home, when family would be visiting, whether he'd be able to man the shop with her or not. Omar was the older brother expected to guard over his younger sister, keep her from other boys and the overindulgences of Spanish girls, but he had never taken that role very seriously. Nadia had never expected anything different from their relationship, never thought that they either of them had something deeper to share of themselves with each other. May had been the sibling she was closest to, even though she'd been older than them both. Nadia had always thought it was because May was more affectionate, and therefore easier to share things with.

But with Ander Nadia saw there were parts of Omar she didn't know at all. It wasn't that he was gay and now she knew, and it wasn't that he was suddenly unrecognizable to her, either. It was that with Ander she was able to see the full range of who Omar was, was able to see that who he had been with her for years, and who he still was in front of their parents, was only the faintest expression of everything he had to offer. He had a sly humor and he was teasing. He had an easy swagger that drew people to him and made them trust him, made them have confidence in him. He could make fun of you without hurting your feelings. And from what she saw, he knew a lot more about love and romantic relationships than she did. It hit her all of a sudden that maybe Omar had been closer to May, too, and that maybe the person it was hard to get close to wasn't him at all, but her. It hurt her to think that, but it hurt her more to think that she'd gone so long with Omar right there next to her, and she'd been blind to him. For all her devotion to her family, she'd somehow made her own brother feel that he wasn't important enough to her that he could be real with her.

He was important enough to her that Nadia lied to her parents easily.

"Mammi, Babba, Omar's taking me to the library downtown tomorrow to work on a school project, is that all right?" she called out from the front of the shop. Her mother popped her head in from the back and told her, "Yes, yes, just hurry and close down so we can have supper." Nadia smiled and nodded. She checked to make sure the door was locked and the blinds drawn, counted down the drawer, arranged all the receipts, then pulled the drawer out and carried it with her to the back of the shop.

The next day she and Omar went over to Samuel's, not the library downtown, where Omar met Ander and left her with a quick squeeze of her hand and a "Thank you." Christian was over, playing cards with Samu's mother and some of the neighborhood men. Nadia liked this about Samu's. Even without Nano, it was a place of congregation. She and Samu lounged on the couch in the living room, watching TV and not talking about Marina or Nano, or how he'd gone back to the same public school Omar attended, or anything else that meant something to them. Nadia looked out the window and did what she caught herself doing often now—before she fell asleep at night, when she brushed her teeth in the morning, when the shop was slow and she had no customers to help. She thought of Guzmán.

She knew Guzmán was in love with her. It was more than the words he said—that he wanted to date her, that he'd never wanted anyone so much, that they had a lot in common. Words were easy for him, too easy. He used them the way a butcher used a knife, aiming them precisely, whether he was lying or embellishing or confessing, so that he got the answer he wanted. Nadia knew he loved her because he wore it naked on his face. She could tell how different he was from both her and Omar because of it.

Omar'd had to hide who he was his whole life from her parents and even from her. He could move through the world and have people see him exactly as he wanted them to—straight, unassuming, harmless. She had never managed that kind of deception. The most Nadia had ever been able to do was contradict the assumptions people made of her. She took the ignorance of people who harassed her and exposed it for the bigotry it really was, stood up in class and spoke a foreign language with a better accent than any of the Las Encinas kids even though they were the ones with a lifetime of private education. But Guzmán had never had to hide or defend anything about himself, and so Nadia considered him closely, wondering what it felt like to never have to control yourself, to be so free. It made her heart skip a beat when what she noticed was his features softening when he looked at her, and a smile lighting up his face when he spoke to her, and his genuine curiosity about what she thought of mundane things. There was more than rich-boy flirtation behind his words. She wondered at how of all the things he could be honest about, it was this.

She knew, too, because of how upset he'd been with her at her reaction to Marina's HIV status. It was the only time he'd ever been truly upset with her, and it hadn't even been the worse thing she'd said to him. He'd been disappointed in her. It'd been as if he expected better of her, and that had been the first time Nadia thought that Guzmán truly cared about her opinion of him, that he could be hurt by what she thought of him. She hadn't realized until then that he gave so much weight to what she thought, hadn't realized that she in turn wanted to live up to the expectation his regard came with.

When her phone buzzed, she expected it to be Omar letting her know when he'd be back. It was Guzmán.

 **You should text me first sometimes.**

Nadia couldn't stop the smile that came to her. She bit her lip to stop it taking over her entire face, shifted in her seat so Samu couldn't see it. She gazed at her phone, not answering him, just savoring the words from him on her screen.

 **This is why you should get on IG. That way we'd be able to keep up with each other even without calling or texting. Texting's almost archaic. Half my life is online.**

Nadia wondered if he was really posting to his social accounts when Marina hadn't even been home for a month yet, and then she thought, Oh! Could I have checked his account this whole time? She suddenly felt silly, both because she'd been missing him again without noticing, and because hearing from him made her so giddy.

 **I miss you. What are you doing? Write me back.**

Nadia didn't tell Guzmán that she missed him too. Instead she wrote: **How are you? How's Marina?**

He answered: **Come over and see for yourself.**

Nadia wanted to, but she'd promised Omar she'd wait for him at Samu's, and if she went across town to Guzmán's they wouldn't make it back home til late. Their father had relaxed since the past summer and was no longer looking for a wife for Omar, but that was no reason to risk provoking him.

 **I can't today** , Nadia wrote, **Can I come over another day?**

Guzmán's answer was immediate: **Come tomorrow.**

88

Marina was the one who met her at the door. "Guzmán's not here," she said.

"Good," Nadia answered, "because I'm here to see you."

"Oh?" Marina raised an eyebrow at her. It made a wrinkle appear at the very top of her forehead, where her hairline started. Nadia recognized it as the very tip of the scar from her operation. She was in a wheelchair. Nadia hadn't known her condition was so serious that she couldn't walk.

"I don't really need this," Marina said, her tone airy. She waved a hand around, gesturing vaguely. "It's just Guzmán and my parents and the doctors insist I use it, on account I can't walk for more than ten minutes at a time without collapsing."

"I'm sorry," Nadia said, "I didn't mean to stare."

"Whatever." Marina turned and made her way down the hall.

All against the wall, and all around the rest of the Osuna home that Nadia could see, were boxes. Some were opened and others taped up, and they were labeled with the names of the rooms they were in. She hadn't been to Guzmán's since before Marina was attacked, and with the boxes everywhere it all looked so different that she couldn't recognize anything. Even the views from the signature floor-to-ceiling windows were partially blocked.

"Are you moving?" Nadia asked.

Marina looked over her shoulder at her like she was stupid. "Haven't you heard? We're bankrupt. We can't afford this place anymore."

"Oh," Nadia said, dumbfounded. She'd known that Guzmán's father was being investigated, Carla's too. She'd known that the watch Polo had attacked Marina for had brought to light dirty deals that both men had been engaging in, but she'd had no idea that it had left the Osunas in such a state. Guzmán had told her none of this.

Marina had turned in her chair, was looking at her with a face Nadia couldn't read. "What," she said, "do you pity us? Now that we're poor like you?" The words came like acid from her mouth.

Nadia blinked in surprise. Marina had never spoken to her like this before. Of all the Las Encinas kids, she had always been the kindest. At first Nadia had considered that maybe she was just some bored rich girl who thought the lives of those her family had damaged were more interesting than her own, but then she'd felt Marina's warmth. She'd seen in Marina what she hadn't been able to understand in her sister. She was a young woman who was looking for the truth of joy in life, but didn't know how to get it and keep it. Even more than her kindness, Marina had always been easy to be around. No carrying herself like she was better just because of her money, no delusions that anyone different form her wanted to take advantage of her. She'd been thoughtless and flighty, maybe even selfish, but she hadn't been slumming it. She'd accepted Nadia and Samu as they were and hadn't made them feel like they were worth less because of where they came from.

Nadia fixed her with a look she hoped didn't betray the hurt she felt. "No. I think I may be too poor to feel pity for people who got their money through bribing government officials and making public buildings that can't stand for more than three months."

"Ha!" Marina said, but it was full of bitterness.

Nadia couldn't understand it. She'd spent so long watching Marina in the hospital, hoping day after day that she'd wake. She'd come over expecting an extension of the brief reunion they'd had in the hospital room the day she'd woken up, and instead she was being insulted. She shook her head. She felt unmoored, suddenly, wanted to find something to help her locate herself in whatever it was Marina was throwing at her. "Why are you being—"

"Such a bitch?"

"—like this?" Nadia finished. "This is the first time I've seen you since…since before." She made an abortive gesture with her hand.

"So? You're just here to spy on me for Guzmán. You can fuck off and tell him not to bother."

"Why do you think I'm here because of your brother?"

"Why else would you be here?"

"Because I care about you!"

"Well I don't need it," Marina snapped. She drew her chin up, set her jaw. "I already have one suffocating sibling, I don't need you pretending I'm yours."

Nadia was too shocked to even glare. She'd told Marina about May in confidence. She'd told her about May as a way to reach out to her, to let her know that she was trying to understand her, and that she wouldn't make the mistakes with her that she'd made with her own sister. No one else at Las Encinas knew about May, not even Guzmán, and in fact Marina was the last person Nadia had spoken to about her. She and her family never mentioned her name at home.

The silence stretched taught between them. Nadia was the one who finally broke it. She said, "You're lucky to have Guzmán. He's the only one who can stand you." She turned to leave without waiting for an answer.

Nadia's heart beat quick in her ears as she left the house. Tears stung her eyes and she wiped them away impatiently with the back of her hand. She'd felt like this before. It was the same as after Lu had told her Guzmán was only being kind to her for the sake of a bet. All over again, she felt like these people were strangers to her and would always be so, that any distance she crossed was nothing to the distance between them. She felt stupid and silly for reaching out, for thinking that after just a few months of knowing her, she and Marina could be close. Worst of all, she felt exposed. Marina had brought her longing for May out into the open. What she'd said was tantamount to telling her she should be ashamed of it.

That night Nadia lay in her bed, unable to fall asleep. May and Marina were all tangled up inside of her, and after what Marina had said, she wanted to pull them apart. She didn't want to think of May when she saw Marina anymore, didn't want to go see Marina when she thought of May. She didn't want to think that if she ever saw May again, she'd push her away, just like Marina had. She remembered what she'd thought of Guzmán, about how he had such strict demarcations about people, but was steadfast once he let you into his life. She knew how easy it was for people to leave, and in her most honest moments, knew it was what she feared most.

There was a clatter at Nadia's window, and a moment later, Omar tumbled in through it. She left it open for him now, because his room was closer to their parents' and it was safer for him to come in through hers.

"Omar!" she heard a voice whisper up from below. "Omar! I love you!"

"Shhh!" Omar said, but his voice held laughter. "Go home!"

When he turned Nadia was sitting in her bed, watching him.

"Oh, shit!" he brought a hand to his chest. "You scared me," he whispered.

"You climb into my window in the middle of the night and you're the one who's scared?"

Omar shrugged. Nadia made a face at him. "Aren't you a little old to be playing Romeo and Juliet?"

Omar squinted at her in the dark, then took off his hoodie and climbed into her bed to sit next to her. They hadn't been in bed together since they were very little, back before their family had the store, when they used to sleep together with May. They'd used to tell each other stories late into the night and pretend to be asleep every time her father or mother came in to tell them to be quiet. Nadia scootched over to make space for him, just enough so he could fit, but not enough so that they weren't touching. It was only lately that she'd realized she'd missed Omar. She'd forgotten that when they were very young, maybe five and six, they'd been inseparable.

"Why are you so grumpy?" Omar asked.

"I'm not grumpy," Nadia snapped. Omar raised his eyebrows at her. Nadia made a face at him again, pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them.

"Was that Ander?"

"Yeah."

"He just runs around all day, telling you he loves you?"

Omar got a dopey smile on his face. Nadia couldn't remember seeing him smile like that before she'd known about him and Ander. She wondered if he really hadn't or if it was just her who'd never noticed; she wondered how many of May's dopey smiles she'd overlooked. "Yeah," he said.

"Must be nice," she mumbled.

"What do you mean?" Omar asked. "Isn't that kid with the bad haircut into you, the uptight one?"

"You mean Guzmán, your boyfriend's best friend?" Nadia said pointedly.

"Whatever. I thought he was trying to get with you?"

Nadia took a moment before she answered. "Omar…Don't you ever feel like Ander is…too different from you?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean like, well, his mom. She had one conversation with Babba and he lost it."

"Yeah, but that's Babba," Omar said.

"Okay, well, what about all his money? Last break he went sailing in Corsica with his parents. You've been dealing so you can get your own place—which you don't do anymore, right?"

Omar ignored her question. "I mean, yeah, he's got money, but we don't really spend our time talking about sailing. Look, Nadia, what are you asking?"

"I guess—just—how is it so easy for you?"

"Easy?" Omar leaned away so he could look at her full in the face.

"No!" Nadia reached out, took hold of his arm with both her hands. "That's not what I meant. I mean…" She bit her lip. "How do you know you really like him?"

Omar shrugged again. "I just want to be with him. I like seeing him. And I don't get tired of it. Ten minutes, ten hours, it doesn't matter."

"It's really that simple?"

"I mean I'm climbing through windows, here, Nadia." She giggled, and it came out as a snort. Omar reached out and tugged on her nose.

"Is this really about that Guzmán kid?"

Nadia shrugged. It was about Guzmán, it was about Marina. It was about how much she was willing to let herself want, and if she was willing to get hurt for wanting. It was about how she sometimes wondered if Omar had been planning on leaving without telling her. It was about May, too, but Nadia didn't know how to say any of it.

"What do you see in him?" Omar asked her. "Isn't his favorite pastime making an ass of himself in front of our parents?"

"Oh, he does that more generally, actually. In front of teachers, in front of strangers… I think it might be a personality trait."

Omar laughed. "And you still like him?"

Nadia thought of the days she'd spent with Guzmán by Marina's bedside, of his smile, of how fun-loving he was and how he could surprise a laugh out of her; she thought about how much he loved Ander and how he went out of his way to protect his friends. Now at Las Encinas she didn't have only herself. She didn't have only her schoolwork and her academic goals. She had Guzmán. She wasn't anonymous in a sea of peers who identified her only as the Muslim girl. She could count on walking into school every morning, now with her hijab, to find Guzmán waiting by her locker, and he recognized her. It was such a relief to be known.

"I think…I like being with him," Nadia said. "And…"

"And?"

"I like that he likes me. I like how he looks at me."

Omar considered her, and again Nadia felt exposed. "What?" she asked.

"Nothing," Omar said, "I just never realized how alike we are, is all."

Later, after Omar left for his own room, Nadia thought about how just a few months before, their conversation would never have happened. If Guzmán, in his fit of spitefulness, hadn't told her Omar was gay, she never would have known. Instead of climbing into her bed to talk to her, Omar would have been living a life separate from her own, and she would have been languishing in her ignorance, totally unaware that he was planning to leave her, just like May did. It could have happened so easily. It would have been so easy for her to never have had the chance to face herself and see who she really was—if she was someone who would choose convenience and acquiescence over truth, if she was someone who could love her family without condition and without shame. She thought, In order for people to come back to you, you have to let them. Omar had let her come back into his life, and in return she had him back in hers. Marina had made it sound as though Nadia just missed her sister, that she wanted her forgiveness, but it wasn't so simple as that. What Nadia wanted was to be able to go back in time and be better for May, be for her what she knew now to be for Omar, so that she never would have left.

88

Nadia sat perched behind the register in her family's shop, chin in one hand, pen flipping between the fingers of the other. She was gazing into space, the conversation she'd had with Omar and a song she'd listened to with Guzmán weaving through each other in her mind. She was snapped out of her thoughts by a sharp rap on the storefront window. Guzmán was there, squinting in at her through the sunlight, and with him was Marina. He waved at Nadia, then pushed Marina into the store.

"Hey," he said.

"Hello," Nadia said, but her gaze was on Marina.

"We came to buy…" Guzmán looked around him, "this." He picked a tomato off a counter, walked around Marina, and placed it in front of Nadia.

"You came to buy one tomato?"

"Ah, yes. I'm thinking of using it in a soup."

"That'll be twenty-five cents."

"But I'm not done shopping."

"Then please feel free to continue, sir."

Guzmán gave her a soft smile and bowed his head. He looked over at Marina, then walked away, hands in his pockets, leaving Nadia and Marina facing each other.

Marina waited until he was at the very back of the store before she spoke. "You guys are so subtle." She picked up a potato, wheeled over to the counter, and reached up to place it next to the tomato. "I came to apologize," she said.

"Your suffocating brother isn't forcing you?"

"No. I asked him to bring me here." Marina looked down at her hands. They were fidgeting in her lap.

Nadia'd only slept a few hours, and it was only that morning that she'd been able to start thinking more clearly. Looking at Marina before her, with her hair big and curly around her face, so different from Guzmán, and her demeanor changed from the day before, Nadia thought about love, and how it had to be more than just a feeling—it couldn't be apathetic or dormant, or else it wasn't really love. In order to love, she thought, you have to act. You had to speak up, had to take a step closer to someone, had to forgive.

"Okay," she said.

Marina looked up at her sharply. "Okay? Just like that?"

Nadia pressed her lips together, nodded.

"Let me explain myself, at least."

"You don't have to, but if you want to, I'll listen."

"I want to." Marina took a deep breath. "You're the first person who's come to see me."

"Really?"

Marina nodded. "The only person. I remember before…" Marina's lower lip trembled, and Nadia wanted to reach out and hold her. "…At the ceremony last year," she continued, "I was so alone. Everyone was against me, even you, even Guzmán. I didn't know how I could face another day in that place. I'd always hated it, because everyone was always so fake, but that was the first time I'd felt like a stranger."

"Oh, Marina," Nadia said.

"Let me finish." Marina took another deep breath. "When I woke up I didn't remember at first. Guzmán was there, and Ander, and you. But then no one else came. It's been a month since I woke up, and Samu hasn't even called. Nano hasn't, either. And now I remember how everyone hates me." And with those words Marina's tears finally spilled over her cheeks.

Nadia's heart went out to her. She rushed from behind the counter, bent over her, hugged her.

"Don't believe that Marina, at least not about me," Nadia said. She pulled back, placed both her hands against Marina's cheeks and held her face. "I don't hate you."

"Even after what I said?"

Nadia shook her head, gave her a gentle smile.

Marina's in return was faint. She was still crying. She sniffled. "I have something for you." She pulled a small rectangular box from the pocket of her sweatshirt. It was a case for glasses. "Here. Guzmán told me gifts work on you."

"So you brought this, just in case?" Nadia gave her an exasperated look and shook her head, but she still took the case from her. Inside was a pair of sunglasses.

"Come on, let me put them on you."

Nadia leaned forward, and Marina slid them onto her face. "Look," she said. She turned Nadia's face to the glass storefront with gentle fingers on her chin. In her reflection, Nadia recognized the sunglasses as the ones Guzmán had worn the day after his father's benefit. She passed a finger over the frames. "Aren't these your brother's, for his hangovers?" she asked.

"No, they're mine, for my hangovers," Marina said, and Nadia remembered then that Marina had been wearing the very same ones the day after Samu's party. "He stole them from me," Marina said. Nadia laughed at the image this brought to her, of the Osuna siblings squabbling over a pair of sunglasses.

Guzmán came up behind them then from the back of the store. When he saw Nadia a grin spread over his face. "Hey," he said, "aren't those—"

"Don't even try it," Marina said, "I'm the one who bought them."

Guzmán shrugged. "They look better on Nadia anyway."

Marina stuck her tongue out at him. Nadia had to cover her mouth with her laughter.

Guzmán looked between them. "All made up?" he asked.

Marina reached out and took Nadia's hand between both of her own. "Are we?"

Nadia nodded.

ii.

With her brother dating his best friend, and herself being so close to his sister, Nadia and Guzmán drew closer and closer to one another; what they had between them became more than curiosity and flirtation. If Nadia had to name it, she'd say that Guzmán was someone who'd found a place in her life and fit himself into it. He became familiar to her, so that she knew his gestures and thoughts, his peculiarities and his real charms, not just the ones he put on display to get what he wanted. He was frustrating but he could be so sweet, and somehow, between her exasperation and her genuine attraction, he became an intrinsic part of her life. She didn't tell him this, but she felt she could rely on him. It was something she prized above almost anything else, the stability of someone you could turn to when you found yourself tired or uncertain or flagging. Beside that feeling lay a strange desire to protect him, to have him rely on her, too.

She and Guzmán, she and Marina, she and Omar and Ander, they all became enfolded into each other's lives. Nadia spent afternoons at Ander's place with Guzmán, and when Omar made it over from school, she and Guzmán would give them room to be alone; later, Guzmán would give her and Omar a ride home so that they wouldn't be late, dropping them a few blocks away so that their parents wouldn't see them climbing out of his car. Omar ragged on Guzmán almost as much as Guzmán flirted with her, and it left her in stitches to see how red his face got, unable to say anything because Omar was her brother and Ander's boyfriend. She spent weekend days in the new Osuna home, and Guzmán and Marina trusted her enough to let her see moments she knew they didn't share with anyone else. Guzmán once thanked Marina for staying alive and coming back whole, even apologized to her for having been friends with Polo. The day Marina started school again, one grade behind her and Ander and Guzmán because of all the time she'd missed, Nadia met her beforehand, and they walked onto the campus together.

Watching Marina and Guzmán together, Nadia saw that they loved each other deeply. There was a tactile affection between them that showed in hugs and kisses and ruffling hair, but it was also in quieter things, like how Guzmán knew all the medication Marina took and when, and set them out on a tray for her with a fresh glass of water. Nadia learned that when they'd been eight years old, Marina had started a tradition where she chose a day in the year to celebrate his birthday with just the two of them, a day separate from the one their parents had chosen. It changed every year, and it was always a surprise for Guzmán. Nadia thought it was the cutest thing, and was touched when Marina invited her to join in for the coming year.

Nadia had once wondered what she was to Guzmán. One day she learned. She overheard the tail-end of a conversation between Guzmán and his mother. She heard Mrs. Osuna ask, "Why do you spend so much time with that girl?"

She heard Guzmán say, "Because she's important to me."

One of the things Nadia enjoyed doing best was visiting the open market. She liked stopping by the different stalls to sample the food and touch the different fabric, and her father always gave her some extra money to purchase anything she spotted and thought they should start carrying at the shop. She liked best that it was open to everyone, and it was always crowded and bustling, full of all different kinds of people speaking in dialect and different languages, haggling for just the right price. On this visit, she brought Guzmán with her. They strolled down the cobbled streets, joking and teasing, the sweet tension of their friendship unfurling between them and wrapping them in their own little world. Nadia stopped at her favorite stalls to show Guzmán what she liked, and he insisted on carrying the cloth bag she brought with her for her purchases.

"You know, I'm surprised at you," Nadia said

"About what?"

"I thought you'd be angry and moody. About having to move and being broke and everything."

"I don't get moody, I get justly upset," Guzmán said. Then he shrugged. "And anyway, I have Marina. I have my parents. I have you."

Nadia laughed, and she wasn't even embarrassed at how delighted she sounded. "You have me how?" she asked.

"You're here walking with me, aren't you?" The smile he gave her managed to be smug and winsome all at once.

"Guzmán, I'm the one who invited you. You're the one walking with me."

"Always so superior and so precise," he said, and he had the nerve to sound fond. "You'll make a great secretary general one day."

"But I don't want to work in the Secretariat. I want to work with the ICJ."

"The ICJ?"

Nadia started to explain to him the different sections of the UN, and the kind of work she wanted to pursue when she got older. She was about to mention a documentary about the Hague Tribunal when out of the corner of her eye she caught a glimpse of a mass of long, dark, curly hair.

The same thing that always happened happened again. Her breath stopped short, caught in her throat. Without another word to Guzmán, Nadia twisted around to get a better look of what she thought she'd seen.

"Nadia?" she heard Guzmán say her name. She turned right, turned left, and when she didn't see a woman with hair almost exactly like her own, she started moving. She pushed past other market-goers, using her shoulders and her elbows, dropping bags to the ground and cutting in front of people who were looking into stalls. Behind her, Guzmán apologized to the people she pushed, crouched down to pick up the things she'd knocked over. "Nadia!" she heard him say. But she had to find her. She had to find May. Nadia was sure she'd seen her, it had to be her, she couldn't be wrong this time, not again.

But she reached the end of the street that held the market and there was no May. A wave of panic struck her and she cried out. "No!" At that moment Guzmán caught up to her, reached out and touched her shoulder. "Nadia?" he said, and she flung his hand off her. She stood, chest heaving, body shaking, eyes wide but seeing nothing.

"Nadia. Nadia, talk to me," Guzmán said, but she didn't know how. Guzmán approached her slowly. He placed one hand on her elbow and with it gently guided her back towards the market.

"No," Nadia said, and shook her head. "No, no, no."

"It's all right," Guzmán said, "It's ok."

He brought her only to the very edge of market, at the end of the street where it was quieter. There was a stall manned by a woman wearing a hijab. "Excuse me," Guzmán said to her, "Could we please use your stool? It's only for a moment. My friend, she just needs to sit—"

"Of course," the woman said. She'd caught the sight of Nadia's stricken face. Guzmán thanked her. He placed a hand on each of Nadia's shoulders and lowered her onto the stool. Then he crouched in front of her.

"Nadia. Tell me what's wrong," he said. But what was wrong was so big, and she'd kept it to herself for so long, and it was so much a part of her that Nadia didn't know where to begin. She shook her head, and instead of speaking she let out a low moan and started to cry.

Guzmán dropped to his knees then. He gathered her up in his arms and held her close. Nadia sobbed into the fabric of his shirt, coughing and sniffling and gasping for breath. It was minutes before she quieted. Guzmán still held her. Finally, when the pain inside her subsided to the dull ache it usually was and what she felt most was a sore throat and an oncoming headache, Nadia shifted in his arms. Guzmán pulled back slowly. Nadia kept her face averted. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and Nadia used it to wipe her face, blow her nose.

Guzmán stayed kneeled in front of her, hands in his lap, but he didn't ask her anything. Nadia sent a silent thank you to him. She didn't know if she'd be able to say what she needed to if he spoke right then.

She cleared her throat. "I'm scared that I've numbed myself," she said.

Guzmán still said nothing.

"Sometimes I miss you and I don't even realize it until after I've been feeling it for days." Her voice was raw.

"I'm right here," Guzmán said. "If you miss me I'm always right here."

"But you can't promise me always, can you?"

"What do you mean?"

"And that's the thing, Guzmán, I'd never ask you to tie yourself to me like that, because that'd be unfair."

"Nadia, slow down, tell me what you mean."

Nadia took a shaky breath, and she told him. "I had a sister." She took another breath and she told him again. "I have a sister. Her name is May. May Shanaa. She's older than me, and smarter than me, and if she were around Marina would love her, and she broke my parents's hearts because she left us and we don't know where she is."

Nadia told him about how when she was little, the only person who could stop her crying was May; she told him how May helped teach her to read, and how she'd used to want to be like her. She told Guzmán about what it was like after May left, about how bereft she felt, and how she didn't have any time to be with her pain because she had to rush in and fill the gap that May left, rush in and be the daughter who wasn't a disappointment. She told him how May had reached out to her, and she told him how she'd failed her, again and again. She said, "I miss her so much, Guzmán. I miss her and it hurts. But I can't even ask her to come back. She shouldn't come back, because we'd just suffocate her. Like we're doing with Omar. She was right to leave, and she's better off without me."

Guzmán took each of Nadia's hands in his own and looked up at her with his face open and genuine.

"Nadia, do you trust me?"

"Ugh, don't try your Aladdin stunt with me."

His smile was quick, small. "I'm being serious. Do you trust me?" He rubbed the back of her hands with his thumbs.

Nadia's first impulse was to remind him how their relationship started—with his father's fraudulence, with her spying him in the showers with Lu, with his trying to deceive and humiliate her. The words I have no reason to were on the tip of her tongue. But she thought of how much she wanted May to come back to her, how much she wanted May to forgive her for all her shortcomings, for how little she'd known when she'd been at home; she thought of Omar and how she was only now getting to know him in ways that mattered to him, or how, even if it had only been for a moment, she'd asked him to be less than who he was. Nadia took a shaky breath.

"I do. So don't hurt me." The words came out harsh, like they were a curse and not a confession. She barely managed to get them out.

"Then believe me," Guzmán said. "You're the best person I know. You're brave and you're kind and you're honest. You protect the people you love, and you forgive people. You're so good, Nadia, and you don't even know it, because you're arrogant enough to think everyone should be like you—"

Nadia drew Guzmán into a fierce hug, didn't let him finish. She shut her eyes tight against what she was feeling because it was overwhelming her. "Thank you," she breathed out.

"Don't thank me," Guzmán said. His arms were tight around her. Nadia leaned all her weight against him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders, letting her hold on herself go, and Guzmán took all of her, held her up.

"Being in a family is hard," he said. "Families are hard. They hurt you, and they fuck up. But being alone is harder. Omar needs you. And if your sister ever comes back, she'll need you, too. I don't know her, but I know this—your sister loves you." He said it with so much conviction.

"It's impossible not to love you."

It startled a laugh out of her. She swatted his shoulder blade. "Don't exaggerate," she said.

"I'm not."

Nadia kept her eyes closed and held on to Guzmán. She held on and on and on, and he let her.

88

She shouldn't have cried in the chilly air. The next morning Nadia woke up with a stuffy nose and a raw throat, and her father made her stay home. Her mother manned the shop, and he made her tea with lemon in it and brought it to her in bed on a tray. He used a teacup she and May used to play with when they pretended to have fancy adult dinner parties. It made her smile.

"Thank you, Babba," Nadia said.

"Of course." Her father pressed a kiss to her forehead. He passed his fingers over her face in a loving gesture, then held her chin and smiled at her. "Call out if you need anything."

With her tea half-done, Nadia pulled out her phone. She opened the app she'd only just downloaded a few days before. The picture she'd chosen for her profile was one Guzmán had taken of her for their project over a year ago, back when she was just starting to learn how he could surprise her, just starting to think that she wanted him to surprise her. In the photo she is wearing a dark red hijab that sets off the curve of her brows and matches her lipstick; her chin is tucked in and her head slightly lowered, so that her gaze comes from below her lashes, and there's the tiniest curve of a smile at the corner of her mouth. Guzmán had managed to capture so much about her in just one frame—her playfulness, her intelligence, her self-possession. Nadia liked this photo of herself, liked the thought that it was what Guzmán saw in her.

She only had 4 connections so far, Omar, Marina, Samu, and Christian. She scrolled through the app, found Guzmán's profile, and before she could chicken out, sent him a request.

 **10:50 Shanaasaysnah: Want to start a virtual friendship to compliment our real one?**

 **10:52 ✓ Friend request accepted by OGnunier**  
 **10:53 OGnunier: Anything for you ;D**

Nadia spent the rest of the day exchanging messages with Guzmán. She had to talk him down from skipping school and coming over to her place to tend to her himself, and she kept rolling her eyes because even over the phone he was a raging flirt. He posted a picture of himself getting cold medication at a pharmacy with the caption, 'So she'll get better quickly and I can see her again.' Nadia was giddy with pleasure. She held the feeling close to her, promised herself she'd care for it, and care for herself.


End file.
